Midrash Taame Haserot ve-Yeterot (Hebrew: מדרש טעמי חסרות ויתרות) is one of the smaller midrashim.
In the different manuscripts and editions of it this midrash varies considerably, not only in the number and arrangement of the passages which it discusses, but also in the wording of individual interpretations.
It is cited under its present title in the Tosafot,[1] in the Sefer Mitzvot Gadol by Moses of Coucy, and by Asher ben Jehiel.
A brief extract from this work enumerating the words to be written "defective" or "plene," but omitting the reason therefor, is contained in Mahzor Vitry.
To the Masoretic midrashim belong also the explanations of passages read and not written, or written and not read which have been edited from an old grammatical and Masoretic miscellany in the Manuel du Lecteur of Joseph Derenbourg (Paris, 1871), and in Jacob Saphir's Eben Sappir,[3] and reprinted by A.